Defence review by Stephen Smith and Angus Houston will discover monumental mistakes

The star in the circus ring – the Joint Strike Fighter 35 – is still struggling to overcome hundreds of operational problems. Picture: David Caird

One of the reasons why the Russian invasion of Ukraine is struggling is that their military chiefs have a serious defence equipment problem.

As a result, the latest victory by Ukraine was a double blow to Russia because it included capture of significant weapons and ammunition.

Totally hypothetically, an investigation into Russia’s equipment failures might conclude: “It doesn’t count as defence spending if you spend the money on absolutely nothing. It doesn’t count as defence spending if you flush that money down the toilet. It’s not as though we can go onto the battlefield and overwhelm our adversary by running up to them and waving a copy of the budget papers in their face”.

The Russians now know that they relied too much on old equipment industries.

They seem likely to face a shortage of ammunition late this year or early in 2023.

To boost defence capacity quickly (perhaps with Ukraine in mind), unlike China, they relied on technology and essential parts from the US and Europe.

That technology is no longer available.

The Sukhoi aircraft and the rest of the Russian air fleet theoretically should have created the air dominance to enable Russia to overrun Ukraine.

But the Sukhoi had too many operational faults to dominate the skies.

Indonesia discovered the Sukhoi’s operational shortcomings and bought the French Dassault Rafale instead.

The Russian military chiefs ignored the Indonesian lesson.

Meanwhile Russia is going to need equipment help from China, North Korea Iran and other friendly countries.

Leading up to Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin and the Russian public were given regular public displays of military might.

It’s highly unlikely that there will be a Russian investigation, but the above words would accurately describe the Russian equipment fiasco.

It might be even appropriate to attach the Barnum & Bailey circus description to the Russian mistakes.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has been critical of the last decade of defence strategy. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

But in fact the above words were used in the Australian parliament by Deputy PM and Defence Minister Richard Marles to describe the nation’s defence effort in the last 10 years.

He attached the Barnum & Bailey brand to the circus that developed.

Marles was, of course, playing politics, but in all reality his words represent an accurate description of the failure of major parts of Australia’s defence equipment preparations.

Where Marles’ description is inaccurate is that it does not set out that the foundations for the disaster were carefully laid in the previous ten years between 2001 and 2011, much of which was under ALP administration.

Marles has selected Stephen Smith and Angus Houston to conduct an investigation into the Barnum & Bailey defence circus that occupied the stage between 2012 and 2022.

If Houston and Smith do the job properly, they will discover monumental order mistakes in badly chosen helicopters; tanks that were almost useless; a disastrous submarine contract with the French where we were defrauded; a frigate design that didn’t allow for our radar system and US defence equipment and of course the star in the circus ring – the Joint Strike Fighter 35, which is still struggling to overcome hundreds of operational problems.

Angus Houston was a powerful figure in the 2001-11 era and must take some of the blame for the mistakes that came later.

Stephen Smith was defence minister for some three years during that circus-preparation decade.

Professor Stephen Smith, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Sir Angus Houston at press conference relating to major defence overhauls in August.Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

At the time there was evidence that Smith could see that all was not well in defence, but he did not tackle the fundamental challenges.

Houston and Smith have wonderful material to shred Australia’s defence equipment efforts.

It will be easy to blame the various Coalition defence ministers, but part of the disaster was the weakness in the underlying public servants that spoon vulnerable defence ministers with circus games.

Those public servants rose through the ranks in the previous decade.

I hope Houston and Smith will be truthful about describing the preparations for the circus that took place during their time of power.

And they also need to give credit to the Coalition’s final defence minister Peter Dutton and his assistant Andrew Hastie who, like Marles, recognised the disaster and at least tackled arguably the worst mistake – the French submarine contract – that makes Marles’ task as defence minister easier.

Dangerously for Australia, the US military establishment has been infected in a similar way. The privatisation of US defence spending means that many corporations have vested interests in particular weapons systems, and make their money by continuing to stay with existing aircraft and equipment rather than develop new equipment.

This applies to a number of American aircraft and weapons systems, but thankfully not all.

The great hope for the western world is that after the November elections, those in the Biden administration who understand what happened in the US have the courage to tackle that circus.

Those US developments will come as Australia recognises that it can play a role in setting US directions rather than simply following America on the decaying trapeze.